The Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (born 1923) is one of Africa's great contemporary novelists and the father of African cinema. His work is characterized by a concern with ordinary decent people who are victimized by repressive governments and bureaucracies. Several of his films have been censored in Senegal because of their political criticism.

Ousmane Sembène was born on Jan. 8, 1923, at Ziguinchor in the southern region of Casamance in colonial French West Africa, now Senegal. Among Francophone African writers, he was unique because of his working-class background and limited primary school education. Originally a fisherman in Casamance, he worked in Dakar as a plumber, bricklayer, and mechanic. In 1939 he was drafted into the colonial army and fought with the French in Italy and Germany and then participated in the liberation of France. He settled in Marseilles, where he worked on the piers and became...